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Short and Canonical Syntax
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<H2 CLASS="section"><A NAME="htoc315">A.6</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;Short and Canonical Syntax</H2>

The following table summarises the correspondence between the short syntax
forms (supported by the parser and the term writer) and their corresponding
canonical forms. Usually, the programmer does not need to be concerned about
the canonical represention because the short syntax is accepted by the parser
and reproduced by the term writer (unless canonical writing is explicitly
requested).
<BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="quote"><PRE CLASS="verbatim">
Known as                Short    Canonical                    Active
------------------------------------------------------------------------
List                    [A|B]    .(A,B)                       always
Curly brackets          {A}      {}(A)                        always
Subscripted variable    X[...]   subscript(X, [...])          default
Subscripted struct      S[...]   subscript(S, [...])          default
Declared structure      f{...}   with(f, [...])               default
Attributed variable     X{...}   'with attributes'(X, [...])  default
Variable functor        X(...)   apply(X, [...])              optional
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE>
Here A,B stands for arbitrary terms, X for a variable, S for a compound term
in canoncial syntax, f for an arbitrary functor, and the ellipsis for
a comma-separated sequence of arbitrary terms.<BR>
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